Successful twinning The experiences of ISO/TC 207

摘要

Eighty percent of the 141 ISO member organizations are classified as being from developing countries and economies in transition (58 percent are from developing countries). Despite this, ISO member organiza-tions from developin countries hold only 5 percent of the ISO technical committee (TC) or subcommittee (SC) secretariats and only 2 percent of the ISO/TC/SC working group (WG) secretariats. Forty-two percent of ISO members from developing countries are not P-(Participating) Vk or O- (Observer) members of any ISO/ TC/SCs. In addition, the level of participation of the 58 percent that are members is very low, particularly in the subcommittee and working group meetings. The main reason for this is the lack of funds from the developing countries' National Standards Bodies and from those countries' industries. A second reason is the lack of information and awareness of the importance of the normalization process for the development of the countries. As a result, there is also a general lack of expertise in the developing countries.